Freaky Friday

so the last few days we've been having unusual weather here in the Northern Virginia area. It was in the 70's. My daffodils went shooting up and the hyacinths are not far behind. I enjoy the thought of spring approaching but knew that Mother Nature had something else in store - one last hurrah for Winter was on the schedule - at least that is what the weather guy said. And this time he was correct. Yesterday the temperature started dropping and the wind whipped up and by night fall it was close to the mid 30's. Nice. A 40 degree drop almost. Oh did i mention the rain? Well its been doin that too - until it decided to start snowing. We'll have 2-4 inches by the time it ceases to flake outside.

Anyhow the long and short of this is that my daughter left school 2 hours early. They decided to send them home and that is really a good thing. There is nothing quite like Northern VA traffic and bad weather mixed together to cause havoc - at rush hour - which begins here at around 3pm and runs through 7pm - it is a nightmare. So better to have my kid back on this side of the world before the real fun begins. She travels an hour each way to school - it may as well be in another country some days.

I just got back from retrieving the daughter from her bus stop. It's about 10 minutes from the house. I stopped on the way to drop off some Irish Soda Bread to my mom. Her place is 5 minutes from here. It took almost 15 minutes to get there as i had to sit thru 2 cycles of the #2 Punishment Light in town. We chatted for a few minutes until daughter texted me from a stop along the way so i knew where she was and how long i had to get there. So i headed out to the bus stop (which is at an elementary school). I sat at the number #1 Punishment Light in Leesburg through two cycles. Always a treat. Then to the school. Waited about 3 minutes and the bus arrived. Then we headed out into the gridlock that the traffic had become. Sat at the #3 Punishment light through only one cycle and then worked our way back thru #1 light, once again - 2 cycles long. All in all the entire trip took 1-1/2 hours. In non-snowing conditions (its reallly coming down out there) it would probably take me 45 minutes all tolled.

Here's a picture of my pear tree out front right now

delightful huh? Those are my daffodils that just pushed up in the last 3 days.

Okay so what else is going on -
Miss Holly - an endless source of love and amusement for me. She is the smartest cat on the planet and funny to boot. Here she is doing her daily reminder to me that it's-dinner-time-so-fill-that-food-bowl-please. She will arrive in the kitchen at approximately 6:25. I normally feed them some dinner at 6:30. She will go from the bowl - where she'll sit - as she is sitting here - just as a reminder - hey-Mom- it's-time-to-eat! If i don't get the message she'll go over to the pantry (where her food is) and sit there. If that doesn't do it she'll return to the food bowl and wait. ....And look at me.

Could YOU resist that face? Not easily.

She's is just adorable isn't she?

Now here's is a picture of Frankie

Actually that is Frankie's busy butt and his tail there on the left. Their food dish is right below the island in the kitchen. What is that big flower doing there? Hmmmmm - that's my little secret for right now :-) More on that soon.

Okay and here is the Irish Soda Bread i made this morning:

One loaf for us, the other one for my Mom. She was so happy. She'll have it for breakfast and is making the corned beef and cabbage for dinner for herself tomorrow. Me - i don't like CB&C. Some good irish girl i am huh? oh well.

One last picture then i'm off to do various and sundry things (maybe start shoveling - yuck)

I was fooling around yesterday with acrylic paint to transfer images. I had this notion it should work with newsprint - so i set out trying my theory - it works. pretty darn cool i must say. I want to play some more with it. Some images didnt work at all - i think it had to do with the amount of paint and the actual picture. You need a really good contrast it seems. But that was fun. i really enjoyed the process. I need to work on it some more.